Catholics get a lot of shit because they used to run the world with super impolite tactics like wholesale slaughter and subterranean torture campaigns. Plus their previous leader was supposed to be all, "The poor are always with us," but then wore these fancy as fuck little Prada numbers that got everyone up in a huff. I could go one but why beat a dead (and fabulously bedazzled) horse? I'm not a monster.

But for real, Catholic people from like, 1940-1970 were just dropping truth bombs all over the place. Except at wartime because the OG ones were famously against that shit, institutional support notwithstanding. Naturally, since it is 5:45 am and I am avoiding a really serious conversation about boundaries with my cat who is sitting outside my door, I collected a handful of that quotes that I want to throw around like one of those clever babes that knows quotes and shit. This is not a complete list because I am a shitbag and this is just a blog,

THOMAS MERTON ON HOW I ACT ON TWITTER:

“The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”

WILLIAM PETER BLATTY TOTALLY GETS WHY SOME OF US DON'T BUY IT

More rooted in logic was the silence of God. In the world there was evil and much of it resulted from doubt, from an honest confusion among men of good will. Would a reasonable God refuse to end it? Not finally reveal Himself? Not speak? “Lord, give us a sign…” The raising of Lazarus was dim in the distant past. No one now living had heard his laughter. And so why not a sign?

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, WRITING THE KIND OF SHIT I WANT READ AT MY WEDDING AND FUNERAL ABOUT ME:

I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole word indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.

DOROTHY DAY, THROWIN' SHADE AT THE SAINTS OF HER OWN RELIGION:

Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR THROWIN' SHADE AT SHITTY BOOKS:

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR JUST THROWIN' TRUTH:

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR SHOULD HAVE EVERY WORD SHE EVER WROTE READ MY EVERYONE:

Go here to get stared on some highlights, you unworthy peasant of language.